Wednesday

20th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that it doesn’t matter when we start to help to extend the Kingdom of heaven, but that we extend it. We’ll be rewarded fairly, even generously, for our labors, and we shouldn’t fall into envy if it seems someone has had an easier time of it or came late to the party. In Jesus’ time a day’s wage was exactly that: it enabled the worker to live for a day. There was not much surplus wealth, and charging someone interest for borrowing something was a sin known as usury.

The workers who came late to the vineyard needed a full day’s wage in order to provide for themselves and for their families. Anyone who is trying to support their family through a part time job knows it is not the same as a full time job. The landowner is helping people who really need it. An attitude of envy sees someone else’s gain as our loss. We should be thankful for the ability to earn a living for ourselves and our families, and also be grateful when someone else in difficulty receives a little help too.

Let’s count our blessings today and be thankful to Our Lord not only for the blessings we receive, but for those he has given to others as well. That’s the best remedy to envy.

Readings: Judges 9:6–15; Psalm 21:2–7; Matthew 20:1–16.

19th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that before entering into litigation with someone who has wronged us we should try simple fraternal correction. Our society today tends to try and resolve disputes through rules and regulations, lawyers and courts, fines and penalties. We often try from the beginning to get justice from someone through someone else, when we know that nobody reacts well to being pressured into doing something. We should always try to start by settling a dispute fraternally: one on one, in frank but charitable dialogue. We should not only seek our own good, but the good of the person who has afflicted us, and we won’t completely understand their motives if we don’t speak to them. There are many small disagreements that can be resolved this way, and to everyone’s satisfaction.

If an attempt at fraternal correction fails it is not a lack of charity to bring witnesses in and, if necessary the Church (authorities), in order to help both parties see the truth and adhere to it. Justice is sought after, but the good of both parties as well. If the guilty party does not listen to all the facts and to an authoritative judgment, then the guilty party has been shown to not be in communion with those he or she has afflicted and that has to be acknowledged, sometimes publicly.

Let’s pray today that everyone be open to simple fraternal correction for the sake of charity and communion, without the need for “escalation.”

Readings: Deuteronomy 34:1–12; Psalm 66:1–3a, 5, 8, 16–17; Matthew 18:15–20.

18th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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In today’s Gospel on face value it seems Our Lord is being very harsh with the Canaanite woman. The First Reading reminds us that there was bad blood in the past between the Israelites and the Canaanites: the first generation of Israelites were so scared of them that they didn’t enter the Promised Land and continued to journey in the desert for forty years. Jesus is not just being driven by the prejudices of his time: when the Centurion asked him for help, another pagan, he didn’t hesitate (see Matthew 8:5–13). Jesus during his earthly ministry concentrated on the Jewish people; later his Apostles and disciples would bring the Gospel beyond the confines of Judaism, as is narrated in the Acts of the Apostles. So the conversation with the Canaanite woman is very similar to the Wedding Feast at Cana when Mary asked him to do something about the wine situation and he said, “my hour has not yet come” (see John 2:4).

Our Lord is having this conversation in front of all his disciples so that they could see that even someone who’d not been prepared to believe could believe. Like his response to Mary in the Wedding Feast at Cana, here he was inviting the Canaanite woman to offer something more: greater faith and humility. The Canaanite woman rose to the occasion that Jesus congratulated her on her faith and healed her daughter, not only to her benefit but to that of the disciples as well.

We can easily fall into rash judgments about others and their actions. We can pigeonhole them into caricatures or stereotypes. But Our Lord wants to bring the Gospel to everyone in their situation, with their strengths and defects, and lead them to Our Heavenly Father. Let’s ask for the grace to go beneath the surface of those we meet and help them to know the Gospel as well.

Readings: Numbers 13:1–2, 25–14:1, 14:26a–29a, 34–35; Psalm 106:6–7b, 13–14, 21–23; Matthew 15:21–28.

15th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that certain mysteries of life are not going to be understood on the basis of brainpower and doctorates. God chooses to reveal himself and a profounder understanding of the world, of him, and of ourselves. Many of those insights would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve by the power of our reasoning alone. When we don’t understand a truth of the faith, like a child who trusts a parent, we communicate it and live it without concern for being duped or understanding it completely. That doesn’t mean we can’t try to connect the dots and understand the things Our Lord reveals to us, but, like a child, we know Our Father can give us some good advice and teaching for working things out.

Jesus reminds us today that we never stop being children of God, and, like good children with loving parents, we gratefully accept and communicate the truths Our Father reveals to us through His Son, Our Big Brother, who has testified to them all the way to the Cross and beyond. Since we never stop being God’s children we should never lose a childlike attitude: being loving, trusting, grateful, and always open to new wonders and discoveries, confident that Our Father will work out the details.

Let’s ask Our Lord to help us re-discover today the wonder of being his children.

Readings: Exodus 3:1–6, 9–12; Psalm 103:1b–4, 6–7; Matthew 11:25–27.

14th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord commissions and empowers the Twelve to continue the mission that he has begun in the way he has taught them. They receive not only authority from Jesus, but also power: to heal and to cast out unclean spirits. They receive a message to communicate–Jesus’ message–and a place to start: the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We know that in the end they received a commission to go to the whole world and carry out what we call today the apostolic mission, but in today’s Gospel we see them beginning to take an active part in that mission. The Church is considered Apostolic because she can never deny, nor should she, to have been founded on the generosity and work of these men in communion with Jesus, with the sad exception of Judas. We can’t think of Rome or the Holy Father without thinking of Peter and Paul who watered that Church with the blood of their martyrdom, of India without thinking of St. Thomas, of Spain without thinking of St. James, or the very Gospel we’re considering today, written by St. Matthew. How many of us bear the name of these generous men.

The apostolic mission continues and will continue until the end of time. The Church is also Apostolic because we have to be apostles. We have a moral and religious authority in a world that has lost its moral and religious compass. We are empowered by the sacraments to be a source of healing for so many people, and to drive away the bad influences of our society from ourselves and from others; these same sacraments help us to persevere in a challenging world. We are bearers of the Gospel message, and our place to start is our families, our workplaces, and our countries. The work is abundant and everyone is called to live this apostolic spirit within the duties and obligations of their state of life: clergy, consecrated persons, and laity.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to adopt an apostolic outlook on our life and circumstances, and to help us be apostles in his service, inspired by his example and that of the Apostles who persevered in the faith.

Readings: Genesis 41:55–57, 42:5–7a, 17–24a; Psalm 33:2–3, 10–11, 18–19; Matthew 10:1–7.